Can we have common test utilities when running with --import-mode=importlib?

[pmeier]

The documentation for --import-mode=importlib states:

For this reason this [...] makes test modules non-importable by each other. [...] Users which require this should turn their tests into proper packages instead.

For me this sounds like if the tests directory is a proper package, we can import from other modules within it. Unfortunately, I didn't get it working:

tests/
├── __init__.py
├── test_foo.py
└── utils.py

with test_foo.py:

from tests.utils import bar

def test_foo():
    pass

Running pytest --import-mode=importlib --co tests/ results in

E   ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'tests'

I get similar errors if I change the import to from .utils import bar or from utils import bar.

Did I do something wrong in the setup or is the documentation misleading and importing from other test utilities is not supported for --import-mode=importlib?

[nicoddemus]

Hi @pmeier,

Did I do something wrong in the setup or is the documentation misleading and importing from other test utilities is not supported for --import-mode=importlib?

The latter is true, --import-mode=importlib will import your tests without modifying sys.path at all, which means tests cannot import from each other.

There's #8964 about adding some support for that, but that discussion lost steam.

[pmeier]

That is unfortunate, but thanks a lot for the pointer. I'll comment on the issue.